"Forget it, Sir. If you don't have a pedigree certificate, they will definitely not register you." The middle-aged Roman man with a vicissitudes of life next to Komnenos shook his head and whispered to Komnenos.
"Oh, what the hell." Comnenus turned around and sighed, patting his thigh, but he happened to see Simon who had just come in at the entrance of the tent. There was the last glimmer of hope in his eyes, thinking that it was better to be a living horse doctor than a dead horse anyway, so he walked towards Simon.
"Don't come close. Who are you?" The fat man immediately grabbed the armed ax at his waist and looked at the ragged guy in front of him who looked like he had just been through a battle.
"As you have just seen, sir, I am Comnenus from Paphlagonia, from a not-so-prominent Roman noble family." Comnenus did not call Simon "lord" or "lord" like other civilians. Instead, he called me sir in a neither humble nor arrogant manner. Simon squinted his eyes and carefully looked up and down at this guy who didn't know whether he was a real aristocrat or a fake aristocrat.
"I am Simon of Dorsten. The registration officials and clerks of the royal family doubt your noble status. Why can't you produce the most basic blood certificate?" Simon expressed his doubts in confusion.
"First of all, I want to declare that I will never be stupid enough to risk my own life to pretend to be a noble, and then go to the registration desk of the competition to surrender like a clown. Secondly, if I really want to talk about it, why do I do this? Being reduced to such a situation, this is a long tragic story..." Comneno's serious expression did not seem to be fake. Simon, who was originally dismissive of this, decided to be patient and listen to him. story.
It turned out that Komnenos was the second son of their family. He joined the army during the war mobilization of the general of the military region where his family's territory was located two years ago, and followed a large number of people and supplies to the Emir of Samaria to assist other troops in their attacks. .
After entering the Emirate of Samaria, during the march, the military general who led the army sent a food collection team and asked them to find a way to get a batch of rations or livestock from nearby villages to supply the army. Komnenos was among them.
When the grain collection team successfully arrived at a village not far away, what surprised them was that not even a single villager could be seen in the village, and the doors of every household were closed. Just when they were about to roughly knock on the door of a house to find out what was going on, there was a trembling sound of horse hooves outside the village. Then, after two desperate cries of enemy attack, the sentry outside the village The screams of the soldiers from the food collection team resounded over the entire village.
Suddenly, arrows and javelins flew into the heads of the soldiers of the village's food collection team like raindrops. Before many of Komnenos' comrades could figure out the situation, they were hit by arrows or javelins inexplicably and fell to the ground. Komnenos saw with his own eyes the baron who was commanding the grain requisitioning team. He held up a shield with one hand to block the arrows while arrows were flying in the sky. He held the reins with the other hand and struggled to control the frightened horses under his crotches. He yelled for cover. Then he was stopped by an unknown person. The Samaritan cavalry appeared out of nowhere and pierced his back with his lance, knocking him off his horse.
The soldiers of the food collection team who lost their commander fell into a greater panic than the sudden attack. Many soldiers ran to the open space outside the village in panic. However, this behavior was tantamount to suicide. They would either be killed by Samaritan. The cavalry brutally killed them like dogs, or they turned into hedgehogs with all kinds of "thorns" stuck all over their bodies.
Under the organization of the surviving Komnenos, the remaining soldiers held up their shields and gathered towards the center of the village. But at this time, the Samaritan infantry had already pressed forward in large numbers, which made the food collection team unable to fight. Many soldiers felt as helpless as a lonely leaf in the sea. As a result, Komnenos and his comrades were captured.
This army, commanded by an emir of Samaria, also had to intercept the supply team of the Eastern Roman Empire, so they sold these captives cheaply to the Saracen slave merchants traveling with the army, who took the captives with them. After breaking away from the emir's army, they came to their slave ship docked in a hidden fjord.
In this way, the slave ship took Komnenos and his comrades to the vast ocean. After two days in a closed, damp cabin full of musty and fecal stench, several Saracens wearing Arab headscarves and large robes held knives in their hands and wanted to escort Komnenos away from the filthy air. cabin. Seeing that Komnenos was resisting so fiercely, a Saracen with a big black beard who could speak Greek comforted him: "I heard that you are a nobleman, and we will not throw you into the sea stupidly before getting a ransom." There’s fish to eat!”
Komnenos relaxed a lot and followed the Saracen slave trader thugs to the cabin of the slave trader leader. The leader was an Egyptian who also had big beards and long beards. He muttered words that Komnenos couldn't understand. Then the slave-trading thug next to him who could speak Greek translated the leader's words to Komnenos one by one.
It turns out that the leader asked Komnenos to write a letter to the family asking for ransom. The greedy slave trader leader opened his mouth and forcefully demanded that the Komnenos family deliver one hundred high-quality Denier silver coins in a port tavern in Handax within thirty days, otherwise they would never see each other again. Not able to see their loved ones.
In this way, the slave leader brought his slave ships to invade along the coast of Cilicia, and from time to time he could capture new and emaciated captives, most of whom were villagers from the villages along the empire's coast. It was not until more than a month later that when the slave ship docked at Handax's port, the slave merchant's eyes and ears in the port tavern brought news that frustrated Komnenos - no one came to pay his ransom.
Komneno didn't know why. He felt that one hundred high-quality silver dinar coins was still too much for his not-so-rich family. Besides, he was only a second son, and his father could have just dismissed the incident as if he died on the battlefield. And his brother, who had had a bad relationship with him since childhood, would have jumped for joy when he got the letter, so no one would be able to compete with him to inherit the title.
The slave trader leader was very unhappy. He said, since your family did not bring money to redeem your freedom, I have no choice but to recover some of the cost from you first. After saying that, several strong slave-trading thugs took control of Komnenos, took off his armor, and then beat him severely. After Komnenos, who was bruised and bruised, was thrown back into the slave cabin, he heard the bearded Saracen thug who could speak Greek say "Damn poor guy" and then locked the iron door smoothly. .
In the following days, under the care of his comrades, Komnenos recovered somewhat. The Saracen slave ship also sailed in an unknown direction non-stop. From time to time, new prisoners were stuffed into the crowded slave cabin full of feces and urine. The new captives spoke Latin that was difficult for the Imperials to understand, but as a nobleman, Komnenos could speak a little Latin and could have a difficult conversation with the new captives.
Comneno learned from his new captives that they were fishermen off the coast of Liguria, the Kingdom of Italy. Surprised that they had traveled so far away from home, the fishermen told Comneno that they would most likely be sold to the distant Iberian Saracen kingdom, just like their fellow Italians who had been captured before. generally.
Comunen did not want to end up as a slave in a pagan land. He told his comrades what he thought, and they all expressed their support.
So, on a rainy night with thunder and lightning, Comneno carried the dagger that a comrade had hidden in his crotch and had not been taken away. He called the drunken and impatient Saracen thug to the door of the cell and suddenly grabbed him. He grabbed his collar and inserted the dagger into his neck. The other comrades found the key on the body of the Saracen thug from the gap under the iron cell door and successfully opened the cell door.
On a rainy night, the sea was windy and the waves were high, and things that were not fixed in the cabin were rolling around and crackling. Compared with the loud noise of these boxes containing supplies hitting the bulkhead, the noise made by Komnenos just now was simply out of this world. It is worth mentioning that it did not attract the attention of other sleeping slave thugs at all.
Comnenus and the others kept their focus quietly, retrieved their weapons from the corner, and silently harvested the lives of the sleeping slave-trading thugs. However, a comrade's hand was a little off during the assassination, causing the thug to die. After being killed, he sat up in pain and screamed hysterically, instantly waking up all the other thugs.
As a result, an assassination turned into a fierce battle. The two sides fought in a dark, damp and swinging cabin. The scene was extremely bloody. Many thugs and comrades who accompanied Komnenos all the way died on the spot, but more peasant captives who were extremely eager for freedom He also joined the battle, and the balance of victory gradually shifted.
When the slave ship ran aground on the golden Provence Côte d'Azur beach the next day, Komnenos disembarked in his own equipment with his six surviving comrades and peasant captives. However, to his dismay, his nobles The pedigree certificate was thrown into the sea by a damn slave trader's thug after he defecated and wiped his ass.
After that, Komnenos and his comrades began a wandering life. They worked as caravan guards and mercenaries, from Provence to Milan, and from Milan across the Alps to Swabia. Along the way, he lost three more comrades due to various reasons, which made him extremely sad. In the end, they followed a caravan from compatriots from the Roman Empire through the Principality of Franconia to Dresden, hoping to use the opportunity of the athletic competition to win some money and find another way to make a living.
"What a wonderful and graceful story. It's a pity that I don't have wine, and you don't have the lute that the bard used to accompany me. Otherwise, I would be very comfortable right now!" In front of the big wooden table The royal clerk clapped his hands and leaned on the back of the chair in an extremely comfortable posture. He looked at Komnenos with a joking look on his face and his mouth was dry.
"You actually think that all of this is fake? I made it all up?" Komnenos stared at the arrogant clerk with wide eyes, and almost drew his sword and struck him.
"I think I have to change my view of you. Maybe you are a mercenary with excellent eloquence? I have to admit that you spoke very well, but I have to emphasize it again, get out of here now, or get out if you don't I'm going to call the guards to catch you, this shameful liar pretending to be a nobleman, who talks nonsense. You know, this is a crime that will lead to the gallows!" The clerk slapped the table and stood up, supporting himself with both hands. The table hunched over and stared fiercely into Komnenos' eyes.
"Forget it, McCown," the older wrinkled royal official patted the young clerk's shoulder and motioned him to sit down, "I have lived for so long, who is telling the truth? It's a lie, but you can still feel it. The young man in this empire showed his true feelings several times when he just told the story. It's not like a liar can do it. Although you don't have a blood certificate, I won't risk wronging a good person. risk irresponsibly sending you to the gallows for impersonating a nobleman. If nothing else, go ahead."
"Thank you for your understanding, my dear sir," Komnenos saluted to the elderly royal official, "I know that without a pedigree certificate, I cannot participate in the competition as an individual. . However, if I participate in a group melee with this gentleman as his subordinate, is this allowed?"
"It all depends on what the lord wants." The royal official smiled and stroked his somewhat white beard.
For a moment, looking at Komnenos' fiery eyes and facing the gazes of everyone in the tent, the corners of Simon's mouth curled up slightly.
"Okay, I agree."
